Every Friday, Sporting News’ Ryan Fagan will take a deeper look at the players making on-the-field headlines—both good and bad—with the help of advanced baseball metrics. Unless otherwise specified, statistics have been gathered from baseball-reference.com and fangraphs.com, two thoroughly indispensable websites.

This week, we’ll look three players who shook off slow starts to the season and have excelled during the month of June (all stats through Thursday):

Jason Kipnis is 12-for 24 in his last seven games with 10 RBI and two home runs. (AP Photo)

Jason Kipnis, Indians

Kipnis had an excellent rookie season as Cleveland’s second baseman in 2012—14 homers, 31 stolen bases, .257 average—but it was a bit of a roller coaster ride (monthly OPS ranged from .531 to .810). He started slowly in 2013 (.238/.307/.448 through the end of May), but Kipnis was arguably baseball’s best hitter in June, and certainly the best offensive second baseman for the month. Kipnis started the month with a 2-for-4 day and hasn’t really slowed down; he’s hitting .398 with a 1.129 OPS in June and now has 11 homers and 17 stolen bases on the year.

The stat: 212 wRC+

What wRC+ isn’t: Winning Radio Controlled car races

What wRC+ is: Weighted Runs Created Plus is a way to look at a player’s overall offensive production. A number of 100 is league-average, and every point above or below 100 is a percentage point variance from average. If a player has a wRC+ of 75, he’s 25 percent below league average; a wRC+ of 165 means he produced at 65 percent above league average. wRC+ is park- and league-adjusted, allowing for comparisons to players from other years and other ballparks.

What this means for Kipnis: His 212 wRC+ is second in the majors for the month of June, behind only budding Dodgers superstar Yasiel Puig, whose exploits have been well documented. Though he’s performed in relative obscurity—despite the fact that the Indians are only 2½ games behind the Tigers in the AL Central, they might as well not exist from a national perspective—Kipnis is only slightly behind Puig, whose wRC+ is 230. Pedro Alvarez (more on him in a moment) is the only other player above 200. It’s not just wRC+ that shows his outstanding June. For the month, he leads the majors in Fangraphs WAR (1.9), he’s second in wOBA (.477) and second in wRAA (13.2)

On a basic level, Kipnis has hit more line drives in June, which has been a foundation to his success (and the basis for an insane and unsustainable .500 BABIP in the month). His line drive percentage of 32.3 percent is third in the majors in June—a pretty significant jump from his LD% in May (19.5) and in April (22.4). And it’s not just his ability to find gaps in the defense that’s made Kipnis effective this month. His walk percentage of 14.7 is tied for 10th in the majors. Again, a significant improvement from May (9.7) and April (8.9). Basically, he's hitting the ball harder and drawing more walks, which is a great combination.

Pedro Alvarez, Pirates

It’s fair to say that Alvarez was scuffling the first two months of the season. He’d pop an occasional home run (he had nine total in April and May), he’d strike out a lot (59 times in 47 games) and he batted a very Mendoza-ish .200. He’s still striking out too much in June (30 times in 23 games), but that’s about the only similarity. Alvarez has produced a .321/.400/.714 slash line in the month, to go with nine homers and 22 RBIs. During the Pirates’ current six-game winning streak—which has lifted them into a tie with St. Louis for the majors’ best record—Alvarez has four homers, eight RBIs, a .500 batting average and a 1.705 OPS.

The stat: .393 ISO

What ISO isn’t: Itchy & Scratchy Outtakes

What ISO is: ISOlated power, an attempt to quantify a player’s ability to produce extra-base hits. The number is generated by subtracting a player’s batting average—which treats every hit, essentially, as a single—from a player’s slugging percentage—which assigns increasing weights to doubles, triples and homers. As a point of reference, the MLB average ISO from 2000 until now has ranged from .144 to .167.

What this means for Alvarez: Pittsburgh’s resident slugger is producing extra-base hits at a level expected for a player who was taken No. 2 overall in the 2008 draft. Of his 27 hits in June, 15 of them (nine homers, six doubles) have gone for more than one bag. His .393 ISO is easily the best in the bigs for the month, as only Colorado’s Carlos Gonzalez (.376) and Oakland’s Brandon Moss (.371) are within shouting distance. As a point of reference, Alvarez’s ISO was .135 in May and .296 in June.

The numbers point to one area of enormous improvement as a key to his success. Alvarez has been much better against four-seam fastballs in June. Much, much, much better, in fact. He leads the majors with a 6.95 wFA/C (a stat that, essentially, measures a player’s production against four-seam fastballs; normal range for this stat is 1.5 to minus-1.5), after producing a 0.86 wFA/C in May and an awful minus-2.85 wFA/C in April (that April number ranked 179th of 189 players with a qualifying number of at-bats). He’s taken a pitch that was a huge liability in April and made it into the foundation to an All-Star campaign in June.

Matt Cain, Giants

Cain might not have been the most electrifying persona in the San Francisco rotation over the past few years—that nod goes to Tim Lincecum—but Cain has been a consistently excellent starter for the Giants, which is why his start to 2013 was so mystifying. After six shutout innings on opening day, Cain gave up 13 home runs and 34 earned runs over his next eight starts. This, from a guy who gave up only nine home runs during the entire 2011 season (221 2/3 innings). In his past four starts, though, Cain has a 2.03 ERA and has given up just 18 hits in 26 2/3 innings.

The stat: 2.71 FIP

What FIP isn’t: Feline Insemination Programs

What FIP is: Fielding Independent Pitching. This stat looks at the absolutes controlled by a pitcher and not his fielders—strikeouts, home runs, walks and hit-by-pitch—as explained in this handy Fangraphs video. The major league-average FIP over the past five years has ranged from 3.94 to 4.32.

What this means for Cain: His 2.71 FIP in June ranks 13th in the majors, and it’s a huge improvement over his first couple of months: 5.61 in April and 4.15 in May. And, that includes his first start in June, when Cain allowed seven runs in six innings against the Cardinals. Again, FIP reflects the things a pitcher can control—essentially, when the ball is not put in play (excluding home runs)—and Cain has done a better job in June. His strikeouts per nine innings this month are way up (9.37, as opposed to 8.02 in May and 8.31 in April) and his walks per nine innings are way down (1.38, as opposed to 3.74 in May and 2.60 in April). Cain has also given up just three homers in his five starts this month. He gave up three in a game three times in his first dozen starts.

His ERA in June actually is a touch higher than his May ERA (3.58 to 3.48), even though his FIP, K/9 and BB/9 numbers all show he’s been a much better pitcher in June. A big part of that is his opponents BABIP (batting average on balls in play) was an unsustainable .207 in May, and has reverted to a more normal, even slightly unlucky, .286 in June. Don’t be fooled by that ERA or his 1-2 record in June (individual pitcher wins are a stupid stat, but that’s a discussion for another time). The Giants would much rather see the June Cain the rest of the season than the April/May Cain.